WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday that she does not agree “with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” after President Joe Biden referred to Donald Trump’s supporters as “trash.”
"I will represent all Americans, including those who do not vote for me," stated the vice president.
Harris, the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States, made the comment to journalists as she prepared to campaign in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Her words were an attempt to soften the controversy surrounding Biden's rhetoric less than a week before election day.
This is the first time during the campaign that the Vice President of the United States openly distances herself from the president.
Why did Biden call Trump supporters "trash"?
The commotion began on Tuesday night around the time Harris was delivering a unifying message in a speech near the White House. Inside the building, Biden was criticizing Trump's recent rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where a comedian described Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage."
"The only trash I see floating out there are his followers. His demonization of Latinos is inconceivable and un-American," said Biden in a campaign call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino. "It is completely contrary to everything we have done, to everything we have been."
Biden and the White House rushed to explain that the president was talking about rhetoric on stage, not about Trump's followers themselves. However, Republicans seized on Biden's comments, claiming they were similar to the moment when Hillary Clinton, as the Democratic candidate facing Trump in 2016, said that half of Trump's followers belonged in a "basket of deplorables."
By attacking Biden, and by extension Harris, Republicans are overlooking that Trump has rejected requests to apologize for his comments about Puerto Rico at his campaign event in New York. He acknowledged that "someone said bad things," but added that "he can't imagine it being a big problem."